Part 4: Project 3: Exercise 1: Basic Shapes

I spent about 50 minutes on this exercise. I’d erased all the basic shape lines before I realised these were pertinent to this blog post. I found using them useful as a way of measuring. I found the foreshortening effect was more reliably executed by using basic shapes to form the torso, legs and feet. Previously in the unit it had advised to start in the middle of the sheet of paper and work my way out. But, on two occasions I had followed this tip, resulting in the head being sliced off by the top of the paper. I have therefore reverted back to my usual habit of starting with the top of the head and working down.

In the last sketch the forearms have somehow become stunted. The arms were bent at the elbow hence the arms appearing shorter. I need to make this clear with a few more lines indicating the folds of the sleeve extending further toward the viewer.

By the way, my model is something of a geek: he likes to listen to Tim Harford’s 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy while sitting for me. Each episode is a handy 12 minutes or so long, after which he gets a break. During today’s session, we (for I have no choice!) learned about Vickrey’s turnstile – a device conceived (but never actually manufactured) to implement different fares for different journeys, and different times of day, on the New York subway system.

In passing, Harford mentioned his book Messy, which is about the benefits of a messy approach to creativity. My model, who doubles as a handy elf, has recently started reading this book aloud to me. I was very taken by an early chapter in which Harford extols the virtues of optimising things by exploring random steps backward – for example, to find the highest mountain in a range, it is no good simply continuing to climb a chosen peak; rather one needs to return to the foothills and make a random leap from time to time, in order to gain the possibility of embarking on an adjacent peak that’s higher than the current one. But equally, that leap should not be too large.

It struck me when doing this exercise that the leap the rubric is proposing – a return to underlying structure when drawing a figure from various angles – is an adequate leap for me. Conversely, leaping all the way to drawing a figure with, say, a spherical head and cylindrical torso – is a leap too far. I feel, hopefully without being too arrogant, I already know – whether instinctively or through years of practice – how to “draw what I see”, particularly with regard to figures.

I feel I am finally starting to follow my tutor’s repeated advice: use the course as a framework to build on, not as a rigid cage.

References:

‘Vickery Turnstile’, 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy/ series 2 [radio progmme, digital file] Prod. Ben Crighton. BBC, 30/03/2020, BBC Sounds.

Harford, T. (2016) Messy. First edition. London. Little, Brown.